Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 9/9/2010: PlayStation 3 Shuts Again





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • Airbus Joins Open Source Think Tank Paris
    Olliance Group and DLA Piper are proud to announce that Airbus, a European consortium producing the Airbus family of passenger aircraft will present a business case with the support of the Eclipse Foundation at the Think Tank Sept 28 & 29. Among the topics to be addressed are; long-term community support models, shared innovation between industry, vendors and the community, and open source in supply chain management. With more than five years of strategic use of open source, Airbus will present sophisticated questions for the Think Tank audience to deliberate.


  • Events

    • A Tentative Schedule For XDS 2010
      For those interested in the X Developers' Summit (XDS) that is taking place next week at a tobacco factory in France, a tentative schedule has now been published by Matthieu Herrb for the 50 or so people that will be participating in the summit.




  • Oracle



  • CMS

    • Drupal featured on TV quiz
      According to Jo Wouters, Drupal was just featured on "De Canvascrack", a quiz on Belgian television. I know it is a quiz, but I don't think Drupal has ever been featured on television in such a mainstream way. Cool!




  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC



  • Government

    • UK.gov finally pulls plug on National Programme for IT
      The ailing National Programme for IT has been cancelled, although most of its multi-billion pound spending will go ahead.

      A statement from the Department of Health said a shift to more local procurement would work better, "whilst continuing with national applications already procured".


    • Barroso’s State of the Union
      The Europe Union institutions copy more elements from the United States than I believe suit the dignity of the European Union. Even the “e pluribus unum“, you may also find that on the US seal, though the current US motto is “In God we trust”, ironically the EU started a competition to come up with a translation of the Latin phrase in its 27 member languages, and even reverse-translated it to Latin, in an odd fashion “In varietate concordia”.




  • Licensing

    • Linux Foundation Simplifies FOSS License Management
      The Linux Foundation used this year’s LinuxCon in Boston to launch its new Open Compliance Program, aimed at making it easier for companies that are new to using Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) to ensure that their products comply with open source licensing.






Leftovers

  • Ikea to sell second-hand furniture online


  • Science

    • Mars organics get new lease on life
      Martian soil could contain the building blocks of carbon-based life after all, a new study suggests, despite the negative results of an analysis performed by the Viking missions 34 years ago.

      When the Viking landers touched down on Mars in 1976 and scooped up soil samples, scientists were surprised that the two craft failed to unearth evidence that the Red Planet contained any organic compounds. The apparent lack of organic molecules — a basic requirement for carbon-based organisms — helped to cement the notion of Mars as an entity that would not easily support life.




  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Climate: New study slashes estimate of icecap loss
      Estimates of the rate of ice loss from Greenland and West Antarctica, one of the most worrying questions in the global warming debate, should be halved, according to Dutch and US scientists.


    • Land of Gas
      At issue now, however, are the steep decline rates observed from shale natural gas wells. Don’t these decline curves imply, axiomatically, that the new miracle of shale natural gas production is doomed?






  • Finance

    • Italian school lunches go organic, low-cost, local
      Rome school district with its 150,000 children, and a cafeteria budget of 140 million euros (or $180.5 million), has already pushed the boundary of healthy food to even greater heights.

      If there is one city that has done the most to shape the Ministry’s guidelines, it is Rome. The city served its first organic menu in late 2007.




  • Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights

    • Breaking News on EFF Location Privacy Win: Courts May Require Search Warrants for Cell Phone Location Records
      This morning, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia issued its highly anticipated ruling in a hotly contested cell phone location privacy case. EFF filed a friend-of-the-court brief and participated at oral argument in the case, arguing that federal electronic privacy law gives judges the discretion to deny government requests for cell phone location data when the government fails to show probable cause that a crime has been committed.


    • Online Ads, Privacy Remain in FTC Crosshairs
      A senior official at the Federal Trade Commission hinted on Wednesday that the agency is planning to prod online advertisers and Web companies to adopt new education tools and data-collection restrictions in an effort to protect consumer privacy.

      "Right now the consumers really don't understand what's going on. So I think that is the real issue that needs to be addressed," Loretta Garrison, a senior attorney at the FTC, said here at the O'Reilly Media Gov 2.0 Summit. "We think they sort of know they're being tracked, but they don't really understand the wealth of information that's being collected and the many different parties that are involved and the various ways in which [information] is being used."




  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights

      • Film industry hires cyber hitmen to take down internet pirates
        The film industry is using pirate tactics to beat the pirates – by employing “cyber hitmen” to launch attacks that take out websites hosting illegal movies.


      • How an Anti-Piracy Firm Became Banned In Its Own Country
        A notorious Switzerland-based anti-piracy tracking company has to stop harvesting the IP addresses of citizens using P2P networks. The Swiss High Court ruled that IP addresses constitute personal information and when Logistep collected them without the owner’s knowledge, that amounted to a breach of privacy laws. From its eDonkey Razorback beginnings, via France through to yesterday’s conclusion, here is the full story.










Clip of the Day



The First Official Interactive Unboxing Of The Nokia N8 -- Call Quality



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Credit: TinyOgg

Recent Techrights' Posts

Quantum Quantum Quantum Quantum (Pump, Then Dump)
What has IBM become?
KDE Has Long Used Dragons, and Dragons Come From Hatched Eggs
That Microsoft Lunduke tries to paint this as some "trans agenda" thing says a lot about Microsoft Lunduke and his COVID-19-damaged brain
IBM Announces 5 Billion Dollars "Invested" in "AI", in "Security", and 10 Billion Dollars for "Quantum", But IBM Does Not Have This Kind of Money (It's Fake News to Manipulate the Share Price)
IBM has fast-growing debt and liabilities, it does not intend to invest this kind of money, it's a smokescreen and false promises timed to alleviate the sagging share price (52-week low)
Have a "Lifetime" Without Microsoft
The online rage over this is still ongoing
Social Control Media Does Not Improve Reach, It Wastes a Lot of Time
many people still think that no presence in Social Control Media necessarily means invisibility
Links 02/06/2026: New York Times Debunks "Hey Hi (AI) Layoffs" (Excuse, False Narrative), Sheinbaum Publicly Bemoans US Meddling
Links for the day
 
GNU/Linux Usage Rising Among Gamers, But "Hardware Survey Data Not Available."
Not anymore, not for now anyway
Jumping Up and Down on the Shoulders of Giants, Never Talking About What Bill Gates Did
We're back to 2019
Despite LLM Slop or Chatbots, Our Traffic Has Doubled Since We Moved Everything to the UK (in 2023)
The demise of news sites was not what we thought it would be
Software Developers Attacked by Plagiarism Engines Because These Developers Can Teach People How to Exercise Control, Not Outsource to Monopolies of Slop and Back Doors
"Universities should be telling industry what is to be done next, not the other way about. Present education policy has the tail wagging the dog."
Communicating With Freedom - Part I - Developing “Quibble” and Improving GNU LibreJS in the Process
In the next part we shall examine where things currently stand
Quantum Computers Are "All the Rage" (35 Years Ago, What IBM Promises This Year is What People Promised When the CEO Was in His 20s)
"Quantum" hype is high on the agenda
How IBM Removes 15% of Its Staff Without Even Checking Performance of Staff (or Calling That "Layoffs")
Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) as veiled RAs
Links 03/06/2026: Mobile Systems, Openwashing, and New Antenna
Links for the day
Canonical as Reseller of Back Doors in "Ubuntu" Clothing
Microsoft is the antithesis of security and autonomy
Romania Used to be Windows Stronghold, But That's No Longer the Case
Windows was once upon a time so ubiquitous that institutions didn't bother supporting anything except it
When Science and Religion Are on the Same Side, United Against Slop Pushers
The "Mathematics Pope" (sometimes known as "Pope Pi") brought together science and religion, united against technofascists who are mostly college drop-outs who abhor women
Links 03/06/2026: "In Turkey, Criticizing a Corporation Can Land You in Jail" and "Court Bans X Account of Turkey's Oldest Newspaper"
Links for the day
Web Censorship Benefits the Corrupt and the Criminal
More so when corrupt politicians are in charge
Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine Undoing Censorship of Corporate Wrongdoing
That won't go away anymore
"For Entertainment Purposes Only" But Everyone Must Adopt It for Work and Governance, Say Anti-Scientific Technocrats
"The present mentality around "AI" is like driving to the gym to use a treadmill - it's walking for people who hate fresh air and beautiful changing scenery."
Gemini Links 03/06/2026: Ian Murdock's Ex-wife Footprint in Debian and Alhena 5.6.1 Released
Links for the day
Irish Company statCounter Recognises It Overestimated Microsoft Windows' Market Share in Ireland
it seems like the Irish people are gradually moving away from Windows
Corporate Media Participates in the Lie That Mass Layoffs at GitLab and Loss of Geographic Footprint in More Than a Third of Countries is "AI" and Thus "Success Story"
There's no way to spin this as positive news
Slop Prompting is Not a Coding Skill and Slop Deserves Shunning
Red Hat is hypocritically shunning the very same thing it keeps promoting
IBM colleagues "handed out a PIP and then right after the end date they are gone"
Some go into early 'retirement' to save face
SLAPP Censorship - Part 96 Out of 200: When You Receive Death Threats From Anonymous Sockpuppets/Burner Accounts Connected to People Who Strangle Women and Tell Women to Kill Themselves
Women are not objects and my wife ought not be mentioned in "threats to kill" (how cops have described this)
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: A Tale of Two Antónios - Introducing the Other António
António Costa
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 02, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 02, 2026
Advertisements as Articles in The Register MS
Trust in media
Despite Mass Layoffs and Culls Dubbed "Buyouts" Google's Debt Doubled in a Year and It's Desperate for Money (to Pay Salaries and Bills)
Google and GAFAM in general have mass layoffs because they have no clear route towards profitability
Gemini Links 02/06/2026: Arch Linux WriterDeck and Papyrix Reader
Links for the day
Bloggers Still Have Considerable Impact on This Planet
Nowadays, in academia almost anywhere in the world, there's growing expectation that lecturers will spend not much of the time doing research or even teaching
The Firing Line Against Techrights
Tomorrow we'll tell a story about campaigns to intimidate us with death threats
The Cyber Show on the Fight Against Technofascism
It's very long (all combined), but nevertheless refreshing
What Efforts to Cancel Richard Stallman Ought to Teach Us About the Media, Including Very Large British Publishers
Richard Stallman is like a modern-age Alfred Dreyfus
After Threats to Greenland Northern Europe Seems to be Moving Away From Microsoft Windows Even Faster
The facts on the ground are, more people/businesses/institutions "get the message"
Claim of 500+ IBM Red Hat Layoffs With Termination Next Month
IBM is doing great... at hiding internal affairs
Slop Did Not Rewire Democracy, It's a Giant Flop
we already see slop giants accepting they'll never make money
The Register MS Embeds in Articles "SPONSORED LINKS" That Link to "AI" Ponzi Scheme/Scam
The circular financing giants are allocating budget for the spam, as do the banks (lenders)
Many Countries Divest From Microsoft
new numbers at statCounter today
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: A Tale of Two Antónios - On the Campaign Trail in Brussels
Part 1
SEO is an Acronym That Stands for Slop Engine Orientation
The Web changed a lot when Web directories, portals, and then social control media gained popularity
IRC Network OFTC is Shedding Off Servers
Down to 17
Julian Assange's Counsel Jennifer Robinson Has Just Won an Award
Jennifer Robinson is relatively young
Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (Swiss Federal Railways) and Richard Stallman
It seems like RMS is receiving endorsement or at least belated recognition from very high-profile institutions
Almost 30 Years After Rob Malda Made Slashdot It Still Inspires New Implementations
Maybe the issue isn't Slash per se, just the complexity of it (which SoylentNews complained about in the past)
Links 02/06/2026: "The Infosec Phrasebook", 'Perfect Randomness' and "Leaving the Tech World Professionally"
Links for the day
Faking Demand for Slop: Google's Search Prompt Becomes Slop Prompt (Bait, Switch, Fake Usage)
If there is no consent, then it's unsustainable
When You Give People (or Companies) Money to Buy Your Own Products and Then Call It "Revenue"
A lot of modern "economics" don't benefit ordinary people (all they get is high inflation rates); they're devaluing money by faking economic activity
IBM is Self-Detonating, the Cheeto-Infused Rally is Another Con by Don
pump and dump
"Quantum" as the "Next Big" Bubble
disappointing and delivering nothing
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Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/06/2026: Organising Oneself and Killing Off Distracting "Notifications"
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 95 Out of 200: The Growing Risk of Tolerating Men Who Abuse and Physically Assault Women
FOSS should not be a "safe harbour" or "hideout" for criminals
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 01, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, June 01, 2026
Rust is a Disaster for Both GNU and Linux, But 'Linux' Foundation (GKH) Keeps Promoting It Despite the Problems
And non-GPL licences
IBM's CEO and his "pump and dump scheme" ("Arvind's lies about quantum")
Don't be misled by Wall Street
Gemini Links 01/06/2026: Xylophone Essay, Ham Radio, and Slop Contaminating USENET/Newsgroups
Links for the day
How to Tackle Corruption Effectively and Gradually
In my personal, humble experience
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: A Tale of Two Antónios
"Campaign for the Re-Appointment of the President"
Links 01/06/2026: Patent Applicant Disclosures Drop After the January 2025 IDS Surcharge, "China Exports Surveillance"
Links for the day
Links 01/06/2026: Irreversible GAFAM Bans and "The Pirate Bay Remains Resilient"
Links for the day
Running and Writing Sites for People, Not Bots (Including Search Engines)
Had those sites spent more time focusing on RSS feeds (not social control media "games") and less on SEO (trying to game search engines), they wouldn't be sobbing now
SBB, the Swiss Railroads, Want to Hear Richard Stallman
Can Dr. Stallman persuade key decision makers to adopt not only "Linux" but also Software Freedom (not the same thing), as he did in South American before? Or like he did in Kerala?
Resumes and Vanity Pages
Wikipedia is fast becoming a glorified marketing company
Trusting Microsoft is Foolish
Mr. Rossmann says they "gaslight customers" in their Web site, but it goes a lot further than this
Techrights in a Nutshell, in Very Generic Terms
"for dummies"
SLAPP Censorship - Part 94 Out of 200: SLAPP by Garrett's Litigation Buddy Started 20 Months Ago, He Has Not Even Put in His Defence Yet!
This is what happens when one deals with incels and misogynists who promote slop and Microsoft
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 31, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, May 31, 2026
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